


The Monkey in the Wrench

by ArtemisRae



Series: For the Unknown [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Family Dynamics, Gen, and really do love their kids, but i try to build her up, but it's also somehow not the point, el has insecurities, i made everything complicated, idk - Freeform, its a fic with a plot homg, karen and ted wheeler have a functioning marriage, mike wheeler is a stubborn person, on account of hes a good dad, rating is only for swearing, sick fic i guess, so does hopper, sorry kids, this is my attempts at patching things up, who ultimately loves his parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 15:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12987228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisRae/pseuds/ArtemisRae
Summary: Just a fly in the ointment, Hans. The monkey in the wrench. The pain in the ass.-Die HardMike ends up in the hospital, El has to face her insecurities, and they turn the corner with Mike's parents. Takes places after For Laughs, For Luck, For the Unknown.





	The Monkey in the Wrench

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my first fic For Laughs, For Luck, For the Unknown. It's pretty helpful to have read it before reading first, but if you're determined to continue without doing so what you need to know is that Mike and El got married right out of high school, Ted and Karen objected, and they're living in Terre Haute so Mike can go to school. They have a cat named Garfield who hates everyone except El.

The first indication that something was wrong came when Mike wasn’t hungry for dinner. She’d had a pot of spaghetti sauce simmering the entire afternoon, and had splurged on pork ribs just because he liked them, so her first instinct when he refused was to be a little hurt rather than concerned.

“Not hungry?” she asked, because she had known Michael Wheeler for eight years at this point and she had never known him to lack an appetite. ”Do you want me to make the rigatoni?”

He paled noticeably at the sight of the blue box in her hand. “If you’re going to eat it,” he said, “but I don’t think I can stomach it.”

“Do you want me to make something else?” El went to the cabinet, and started mentally sorting through their kitchen. The pot of spaghetti sauce was supposed to last them the next week but - “I can heat up soup if you don’t feel good.”

“No, that’s okay. Honestly, I have an essay I need to finish and then I’m going to go to bed early.” Mike shook his head and stood up. “You should still eat though,” he added as he retrieved his backpack from the living room.

It didn’t feel right to sit there and eat without him, so she turned the radio on and carefully packed up the sauce so she could wash the pot. _Bad Moon Rising_ came on as she worked, and El mindlessly muttered the lyrics along with John Fogerty.

As she propped up the pot to drip dry she realized Mike had been quiet. When she peered into the living room, she saw he had fallen asleep on the loveseat. His textbook was laying on the floor.

She frowned as she looked at him - she was used to Mike sprawling out, taking up all of the loveseat or the bed. He’d never really grown into his limbs, with his long legs and gangly arms, and he was often careless with how he threw them around. Tonight, however, he’d curled up on his side, hugging a pillow. He was sleeping the way she normally slept.

It was barely 8 in the evening. She bit her thumbnail, unsure if she should disturb him or not, and finally walked over and shook his shoulder gently. If he didn’t go to bed, he’d be in an even worse mood after he woke up. The loveseat was fine for the occasional nap, but really sleeping on it could be crippling.

“Mike,” she called softly. He grumbled and turned his head away from her, into the arm of the loveseat. “Mike, you should go to bed. It’s not good to sleep there.”

With a groan he swung his legs around, sitting up - and turned green. The change in his pallor was so noticeable that she was taken aback.

“Mike?” she asked, voice quivering.

“Give me a minute,” he said, looking down at the floor. “I sat up too fast. My stomach hurts.”

She held her breath - ten, twenty seconds - and then Mike exhaled slowly and stood up. Immediately he winced and pressed a hand to his side, and El instinctively stepped forward to help. 

“Roy had the flu last weekend,” Mike said breathlessly. “I think I caught it.”

“Go to bed then,” El urged, trying to help guide him from the living room. “You’re not going to class tomorrow.”

“I have a test,” he protested sleepily, but when she pushed him into the bed, he curled up the same way he’d been on the loveseat.

“Take your jeans off,” she ordered, and though he moved to do so all he managed was to unbutton them before his hands went limp. El yanked them off, standing at his feet, and by the time she tossed them at the laundry basket in the corner he appeared to be sound asleep. He hadn’t stirred once.

She stood and watched him, resisting the urge to reach out and brush his hair, or hold his hand, or cup his cheek, or otherwise try and ground herself with physical contact. He needed to sleep, and she couldn’t risk waking him up.

Instead she went back to the kitchen, idly noticing that Jackson Browne was now playing quietly on the radio. She and Hopper had both caught the flu the winter she’d turned 16, and she wasn’t entirely ignorant of what they were in for if Mike really had caught it. There was chicken broth in the freezer that he could drink, and while she only had coffee in the kitchen she could borrow loose leaf tea from Anna, their downstairs neighbor. 

El padded into the closet-sized bathroom, still taking stock. They had plenty of toilet paper, but not much in the medicine cabinet besides aspirin - it was too expensive to keep medicine like Nyquil or Pepto just in case, but depending on how Mike felt tomorrow she could make a trip out and get exactly what he needed. Better to do that sooner rather than later. She would never forget her and Hopper trading the sickness back and forth while they tried to take care of one another.

Once she felt more confident that she would be able to nurse Mike through the next several days - and he would be able to return the favor, if he passed it to her - she sat on the loveseat and read for an hour, trying to calm her jangling nerves. She only managed a couple pages, unable to lose herself in the story, before hefting Garfield into her arms and going into the bedroom.

Mike, she noticed, was still laying in the same position. She was used to him rolling around, and it wasn’t unusual to find one of his arms under her pillow or one of his feet dangling off the bed. He looked unnatural, curled up on his side and sleeping soundly. He wasn’t even snoring.

She laid down next to him. Garfield immediately jumped up onto the bed and started turning circles between her feet, kneading into the covers. By the time she felt his purr rumbling against her leg, she was already drifting off.

She woke up in the middle of a dream about that winter she and Hopper had caught the flu, cramped in the cabin together. She had been cooped up in the bathroom, laying on the mildewed bathmat and listening as he pounded on the door, calling her name.

Then her eyes blinked open, and she realized that it wasn't Hopper calling her, it was Mike, and the reason he sounded so far away was because his voice was soft and weak. Instantly alert, she rolled up onto her knees and reached for him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his right side.

"What's wrong?" El asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. She could feel heat coming off of him - he'd developed a fever over the couple hours they'd been sleeping.

"Everything's fine," Mike began, which was the worst possible way he could have started his sentence because he'd woken her in the middle of the night, and there was nothing fine about the tone of his voice or his stiff posture. "But I'm pretty sure I need to see a doctor, so I need you to get the phone and call Maurice and ask him to drive us to the emergency room."

She vaulted out of the bed, racing into the kitchen. "You said everything's fine!"

"Okay," Mike conceded. "Everything is _going_ to be fine. Look, just - call Maurice, he has a car."

Despite the late hour, Maurice was still up playing a video game. It took both of them to help Mike hobble down the steps into Maurice's little Neon. They loaded him into the front seat, and as soon as El shut the door she kicked herself - she wished they had thought to put him in the backseat, so she could sit next to him, but there was no way she could move him now. He was in so much pain he was humming under his breath when he exhaled, and she didn't think he was even aware of it.

El had seen him sick and miserable before, and she'd seen him injured and limping before, but she'd never seen him like this, _incapacitated_ , and it was hard to keep a handle on her growing panic even knowing that they were on the way to get him help.

The hospital did nothing to assuage her anxiety either - they had to convince the nurses in triage that Mike wasn't some drunk college kid, and even then they weren't truly concerned until they took his vitals and found that his temperature was almost 102 degrees.

Then everything became a blur - strangers were coming in and out of the room, tests were being run, and everyone was now _too_ serious. El was starting to understand that something was _really_ wrong when they started using words she didn't understand (appendicitis, sepsis) in conjunction with words that she did understand (surgery, emergent, consent) and definitely did not like.

She was barely holding it together when they were preparing to take him away. As they were unlocking his bed, Mike reached out and snagged her hand. "Everything's going to be fine. Go find a phone and call Hopper."

She blurted out the first thought from her panicked mind. "I don't have any quarters."

"Call collect," Mike instructed, and instantly she felt stupid. She knew that, but before she could try and explain herself Mike kissed her hand and said, "I know he'll come out, but I'll probably see you before he even gets here. That's how quick this is going to be, okay?"

Then they wheeled him out of the room, and El felt her focus narrow. It was the only way she could keep on her feet when all she wanted was to collapse and cry. One of the nurses directed her to a pay phone, and in a weird way she felt like she had years ago when she was walking into the saltwater tank at the Hawkins lab. It was like she had been handed a weight before anyone had actually checked to see if she could bear it, like she was walking towards something scary and unknown. 

She wasn't that same little girl, she told herself firmly, and Mike had told her to call Hopper. Hopper would come out; no matter that it was well after midnight on a weekday, Hopper would always come for her.

Her hands were shaking by the time she approached the pool of phones lining the hallway. She picked up a receiver, and dialed the operator, and as soon as she heard the voice on the end her mind gave up.

It was just like the tank, with the panel closed, isolating her inside. She was alone in a hospital on the other side of Indiana from Hopper, and they were cutting Mike open and it was all so scary and fast that even though she had seen the Upside Down, faced literal demons from another plane of existence, this was one of the most terrifying moments of her life.

The phone buzzed in her ear as the operator dialed Hopper, and El disintegrated.

***

The phone was on the third or fourth ring before Hopper heard it, and on the fifth or sixth ring before he actually reached the receiver. Still half asleep, his brain wasn't coordinating with his hand and he knocked the receiver onto the ground before he actually got the phone up and to his ear.

"Hopper." He assumed it was someone from the station, a midnight robbery or car accident, but what he heard was something much worse than that.

"Sir, I have a collect call for you from -" the operator's voice cut to the phone line, giving whoever was calling him a chance to identify themselves, and Hopper's heart dropped as he all he heard was hiccupping sobs.

"Yes, damnit, I accept the charge, put her through, put her through!" he snarled, before the operator could even ask. "El, kid, are you there?"

She responded in the affirmative by descending into a fresh chorus of gasping cries.

"Hey, kid, hey." Geez, had he really been sleeping just five minutes ago? He didn't think he'd ever felt so alert in his life. "Hey, I can help but I need you to breathe and tell me what's going on. Can you do that, kid?"

He really should stop calling her _kid_. He'd been trying to remind himself for over a year now, but to hear her like this, devastated and crying, it was hard not to revert.

Her reply was choked off - he heard her cough, and gag, then take in a couple unsteady, shuddering breaths.

“Okay hon,” he coached, falling into old instincts. “Breathe in, two, three. Exhale, two, three. Breathe in. Come on El, get a little control. I can help.”

“M-Mike!” she wailed, and Hopper’s heart stuttered.

“Is he okay?”

“No!”

His throat closed around the words, but he forced them out. “Is he alive?”

“Yes!”

He physically felt the relief pouring into his chest like molten lead. Alive. Alive, he could work with. “Was there some kind of accident?”

“No. Sick.”

“Sick?”

Her voice was still tinny and warbling. “We’re in the hospital. They’re cutting him open. Appendicitis.”

If he was relieved before, he wanted to _laugh_ now. Appendicitis. Shit luck, but normal shit luck, and not supernatural shit luck like he had been afraid of for her. “Okay, sit tight. I’m on my way out.”

It wasn’t even a cognizant decision for him to make. El needed him, even if he couldn’t do anything but support her, and he was going. Flo was going to kill him, but he could call her once a decent hour rolled around. She’d probably be shocked to hear from him before 8 am.

He threw some clothes in a bag, grabbed the (unopened) bottle of Wild Turkey from the kitchen counter (leaving the opened one behind) and had his keys in hand before he remembered that he might also need fresh underwear. 

Cursing, he slammed back into the house, and on his way back to the bedroom passed the white phone hanging innocuously on the wall. A stray thought broke through the static of his mind, and he backpedaled. 

Looked at the phone.

Considered his options.

“Fuck! Fine!” he cursed. Dropping the bag, he stomped back into the bedroom, where he found exactly one clean pair of underwear - _he could run to the laundromat with all of their laundry so El wouldn’t have to leave Mike, that would help her_ \- and when he got back to the phone he heaved a huge sigh and dialed the Wheelers.

Unlike him, neither Ted nor Karen made it to the phone before the answering machine picked up. He resisted the urge to swear on tape. “It’s Hopper. Look, El called and Mike’s in the hospital over in Terre Haute. They’re taking his appendix out. I’m heading over now. Um. You know the address, I think.”

Then he hung up the phone, got into the truck, and hit the highway with the siren blaring.

***

Hopper beat the Wheelers to Terre Haute by almost two full hours. Which was good - El needed every minute to shore up her courage as she berated him for calling them.

“He didn’t _ask_ for them,” she insisted, and overhead, as she paced, the fluorescent lights buzzed loudly as she passed under them. She took a deep breath, trying to center herself. She hadn’t accidentally broken something in years, and didn't want to start again by bursting lightbulbs in the hospital.

“I know El, but you have to understand -”

“I _understand_ ,” she enunciated, “that he did not ask for them.”

“He didn’t ask for them because your husband is a stubborn little shit,” Hopper said, teeth grinding. “Which makes you two perfectly suited for one another.”

She held her ground, crossing her arms and glaring. 

“El, look.” He took her elbow, guiding her to the uncomfortable couch in the family waiting room. They were currently the only people there. “Do you remember what I told you last Christmas?”

She sighed. He was referring to the talk they’d had after Mike’s spectacular blow up with his mother the previous Christmas Eve. They had spent the night at Hopper’s - Mike mostly in a rage that hadn’t settled until well and truly into Christmas morning, which meant that he had snoozed through the quiet breakfast she and Hopper had shared.

_“Why do they hate me?” she’d asked him, and Hopper had rolled his eyes._

_“They don’t hate you,” Hopper assured her. “You just gotta understand what kind of people the Wheelers are. When Mike found you, it totally changed his life. And to him, that’s a good thing, but to the Wheelers… parents have visions for their children. The Wheelers had a picture of how Mike’s life would go, and they’re not good at changing it.”_

_“You weren’t happy either,” El had argued. “And you never tried to stop us.”_

_“Yeah well I don’t have the same perspective as the Wheelers, okay? I lost my first girl, and I spent way too much time not having you to risk it ever happening again.” He’d cleared his throat, sipped his coffee, and then added, “They thought Mike was going to be like Nancy - you remember what happened when Nancy went to college?”_

_There had been a time when it had seemed distinctly possible that Nancy might follow Jonathan Byers to New York City. She’d applied to NYU and gotten accepted and everything - then the Wheelers had hit the roof, and told her they weren’t paying for out of state tuition._

_“She’s in Bloomington,” El had supplied. Indiana University was where Nancy had ended up, just like her parents had wanted._

_“Right,” Hopper had confirmed. “She’s in Bloomington, and Karen and Ted thought that if they told Mike they weren’t going to support him, he’d change his mind and back out at the last minute. He wouldn’t do that to you though, and I think they just need time to readjust their vision for Mike’s future.”_

“You said to give them time,” El repeated, conveniently skipping over his reassurance that they didn’t hate her. Hopper nodded.

“They love Mike too,” he said simply. “And maybe this is the kick in the ass they need.”

She made an unhappy noise in response. Hopper tightened his hold on her hand. “I told you to give them time, but I didn’t tell you to take any disrespect from them. They’re coming onto your territory, remember that. If they act inappropriately we’ll both deal with them. Not to mention what Mike will do whenever he comes off the painkillers.”

Belatedly, she realized that tears were starting to well up in her eyes. Hopper rubbed her back while she scrubbed at her face. “I just want him to be okay.”

“He will be,” Hopper replied. “And you will too.”

Despite Hopper’s pep talk, her heart was racing when Karen Wheeler burst into the waiting room and asked, voice shrill, “How is he? Have you heard?”

“Surgery’s done,” El answered as Hopper stood up to shake hands with Ted. “Still sleeping.”

Immediately she rebuked herself - the more stressed she felt, the more she tended to revert to one or two word sentences, something that frustrated Hopper and Mike even if they understood why. The Wheelers surely didn’t understand or even care.

It was just over an hour after their arrival - an hour filled with terse chatting about what had happened, how Mike had thought he’d had the flu, how El had gotten Mike to the hospital without a car, how the message Hopper had left on the answering machine didn’t have the hospital’s address so they’d had to go to their apartment and get directions from their neighbor - when an exhausted looking nurse poked her head into the room and called “Wheeler!”

She seemed nonplussed at having the complete attention of all four of the room’s occupants. “He’s coming around. We’re arranging to transfer him to a room, but until then one of you can come back and keep him company.”

El and Karen both stood.

Hopper’s eyebrows went up.

“I’m his mother,” Karen told El, not quite scolding her but definitely a little offended that El had the nerve to try and supersede her. 

“I’m his wife,” El responded, wishing desperately that her voice hadn’t wavered.

“He’s asking for El,” the nurse interrupted their brief standoff. “Rather emphatically actually.”

El turned away with a shaky exhale, grateful the nurse had saved her from having to point out that Mike didn’t even know they were there, hadn’t even asked for them.

She was so happy to see Mike propped up and holding a plastic cup with ice chips that she thought her heart might burst. His eyes were glazed over, but when they landed on her he broke into a smile so bright it was as if he hadn’t seen her for three years instead of three hours.

“Oh thank god you’re here,” he said, still sounding breathless.

She leaned over and kissed him, ignoring the horrid morning breath. “How do you feel?”

“I think a demodog got me,” he said, very serious. She reached for his hand, holding it to her heart. “Thought you were upside down again.”

She shook her head, lips clamped together. She really didn't want to cry again, but she was so relieved, and to be reminded of the last time she was this happy to see him - "No. No, I'm not going anywhere. I waited."

"I called for you," his eyes were impossibly big.

"I heard," she reassured him, gently reaching out and placing the little cup of ice back on the table before he could drop it. "I waited."

"You won't leave again right?" he asked, all earnest little boy, and any tension left over from her interaction with Mike's parents left as her heart melted.

"No," she promised, sitting so close to the hospital bed that her knees leaned painfully into the railings. "I won't."

And she didn't - they had to wait until they found an empty bed for him, but by the time they had wheeled him into the little (but private) room and parked his bed next to the window, El had entirely forgotten about the presence of the Wheelers in the hospital waiting room.

Which meant all of those feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty came crashing back as his parents and Hopper were led into the room by an escort. Instinctively, she tried to withdraw, pulling back from Mike, but his grip held firm.

He shot her a confused look, and thus didn't notice his mother immediately. Karen folded Mike into her arms, pushing his hair away from his head, and cooed, "Michael, honey, how are you feeling?"

El had to forcefully pull her hand out of his, and it would take months for her to forget the flash of hurt that crossed his face before he realized who was now talking to him.

"He's still -" El started to say, wanting to warn them that he was, in the words of the nurses, _doped up_. She knew he wasn't in his right mind because the last time he’d seen his mother the previous summer things had been tense but polite - and when he realized she was the one hugging him his face blossomed into an impossibly huge smile.

“Hi Mom,” he said, his hands coming up to pat at the arms wrapped around him. “Hi, I didn’t think I’d see you.”

“Oh Michael,” she sounded close to tears. “Of course we came out. We wouldn’t just let you sit here in the hospital by yourself.”

"Mom," Mike leaned away, trying to escape her arms. "Mom, I'm not alone. El's here."

"Yes, of course, honey," Karen's tone wasn't patronizing, but it was obvious even to El that she hadn't thought about her words at all. She had merely been trying to assure Mike, and it took her a moment to realize that Mike had disengaged.

His cloudy eyes wandered back to El, and his hands moved restlessly, like wanted to reach for her. "Did you see my wife?"

El flashed him a tense smile, but Mike’s eyes lit up. "Did you see her?" he repeated, more urgently to his mother.

"Yes, of course, Honey." She gave El a wan smile.

"I didn't think you'd seen her," Mike insisted. El realized with something akin to horror that he was getting emotional, and his voice was choking up. "We have a whole apartment and everything and you've never seen it."

El looked up at Hopper, unsure what to do. She could count on one hand the number of times she'd seen Mike cry. Mike could get angry in the blink of an eye - she'd seen him pick fights, she'd seen him finish fights, and she'd seen him make things harder for himself (and sometimes her) because of it. The only time his emotions drove him to tears was when it involved his relief for others - her and Will usually.

Things with his parents had been tense since they'd gotten married and moved across the state. They had fought, and even with his father providing them with a monthly stipend that his mother _still_ didn't know about their visit home the previous summer had been cordial, but awkward.

If El had been asked yesterday how Mike would handle an unexpected appearance from his parents, she would have predicted him to throw a fit, to be cold and cautious about what he said to them.

"They got him on the good stuff," Hopper said from her elbow. He was leaning against the window sill next to her, arms crossed, unimpressed. She shot him a disapproving glare, and he cleared his throat and sipped from a Styrofoam cup that she hoped was only coffee.

"We'll stay as long as you need," Karen was promising Mike, but Mike wasn't even looking at her.

He was looking at El, and his face was so open and honest that he looked like a little kid again. His eyes were still bright and swimming with tears. "You're so pretty," he muttered, his lips drawn into a pout. "I can't believe you married me."

She gave him a wavering smile but didn’t reach out. Karen still had her arms around her son’s shoulders, now sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, and El couldn’t shake the feeling of intrusion, that she was underfoot in a family moment.

Despite the fact that Mike never stopped looking at her, for her, talking to her, she never quite shook that feeling of being a child who had to sit still and be quiet. He didn’t get breakfast but they did deliver a lunch to him; she had to clench her fists as Karen fussed over the items on the tray. The chicken soup seemed to meet her approval, but she questioned if Mike should be eating something as complex as dry toast. El bit her lip as she considered whether or not she would have ever thought to consider it in the name of Mike’s health the way his mother did.

Mike was good at humoring his mom - he did seem genuinely happy to see her, even as the fog of surgery lifted and he became more lucid. As he became more coherent, however, he also got more tired, and by early afternoon he was drowsing off.

When he dozed off and spilled the cup of water he’d been holding, Hopper stood and took El by the elbow. “Come on kid,” he said, leading her away from the bed.

He was guiding her towards the door, and El locked her knees, trying to stop him. Hopper didn’t miss a beat. “You two are coming too,” he ordered Mike’s parents, and while Ted stood obediently and gathered his coat and newspaper, Karen balked at the order. “We’ll be back for dinner. But we’re all going back to the apartment to freshen up and get something to eat. El’s been up all night and I’m hungry.”

Ted and Karen followed Mike and Hopper back home. As they rode in the car El stared down at her feet and realized she wasn’t even wearing real shoes; she’d spent the night in the hospital wearing Mike’s moccasin slippers.

They lasted a whole fifteen minutes on the road before Hopper asked, “You hanging in there?”

She swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

He glanced over at her and sighed. “I can tell something’s gotten in your head, but I can’t tell if it’s his parents or seeing Mike like that.”

She shrugged. The true answer was somewhere in the middle. “I just want him to be okay. And I want to take care of him.”

“You two have been taking care of each other for years,” Hopper said firmly. “It’s how you ended up out here in the first place.”

“I guess.” It was hard to think of it that way. She leaned her head against the car window and watched the buildings blur. She didn’t think she slept, but it was still Hopper’s voice that jolted her back to awareness once they reached their little apartment building. He pulled into the space designated to her and Mike even though they didn’t have a car and left the Wheelers to street parking.

She fumbled with the keys to the building, painfully aware that this would be the first time that Mike's parents got any real insight into their life in Terre Haute. As soon as she got the door open, the front door to the apartment below theirs flew open.

"Ella! Ella!" It was their downstairs neighbor Anna, and she looked close to tears. "How is Mike? What happened?"

She wrapped her bony arms around El, and to her mortification El felt her throat close up. Anna and Marco had adopted El and Mike as their own within a month of moving in; Anna had single handedly improved their diets by teaching El about cooking, and Marco expressed affection by finding items for their sparsely furnished apartment. They seemed to have an inside line on every store owner in Terre Haute, whether it be the butcher or the locksmith. 

"He's okay," she managed to choke out. "They took out his appendix."

"Oh poor Mike," Anna pulled out of the hug and held her at arm's length, studying her face. "Poor Ella."

Hopper cleared his throat, reminding her that he and the Wheelers were waiting. Anna looked above El's head, and her face lit up. "Jimmy!” In her thickItalian accent it came out as _Jee-mee_. “Jimmy you’re here!”

Hopper gave her a grim, but affectionate, smile. "Hi Mrs. Christiano."

"I'm so glad you came for Ella!" Anna reached up, hands gesturing for Hopper to bend down, then cupped Hopper's face and planted a kiss firmly on his cheek. "Go rest, I'm baking lasagna now. I'll make the fried dough you like too."

Hopper smiled, and thanked her - and then saw that Anna's attention had been drawn to the Wheelers, who were watching curiously as Anna fussed over El and Hopper.

"Did you find the hospital?" she asked pleasantly enough, and El suddenly remembered Karen telling them earlier in the morning that a neighbor had given them directions to the hospital because Hopper hadn't.

"Yes," Karen said warmly. "Thank you so much for your help."

"Um," El looked between the two, "Anna, these are Mike's parents. Did you know who they were?"

"No, no." Karen and Ted both received polite handshakes. "I guessed, but I've never met them before. They've never visited before, yes?"

"Not yet," El confirmed.

"We're just here to have lunch before we go back to the hospital, " Hopper said, one hand at the small of El's back to push her up the steps. "We'll catch up before I leave though."

"Tell Mike I'll pray for him!" Anna called up the stairs behind them.

Hopper thanked her while El unlocked the apartment. The place had been their home for just over a year at this point, and El loved it fiercely. It was small - just big enough for their loveseat and a little TV, and a card table if they had guests. Over the summer Marco had helped them upgrade their mini-fridge into a standing fridge and freezer - a process which had left both Marco and Mike with sore backs and during which Mike had learned how to curse in Italian while Marco had been treated to the most innovative swearing in English.

Beyond the kitchen was the tiny balcony where El liked to sit and read in the sun. When they'd moved in last year it had been bare, save for two plastic patio chairs. Last summer Anna had introduced El to gardening, and now there was a pot sized planter with a tomato plant in a cage - no longer flowering, since it was the end of the season, but still green, and El was proud of it. The bell pepper hadn't done nearly as well, but their herb garden was still going strong, and El planned to move it into the apartment and nurse it through the winter.

Their bathroom was the size of a closet, the bedroom so small that they couldn't open a dresser drawer without hitting the bed, but it was their home, and they had turned it into their home together, and El hated the feeling of anxiety creeping up on her as she imagined the Wheelers combing through it and judging whether or not it was good enough for their son.

Garfield was lounging on the back of the loveseat. He couldn’t be bothered to sit up when El came in the door, but as soon as he saw the people with her his ears laid down and he hissed.

She didn’t try to introduce the cat or even give them a tour; she left that to Hopper and instead went to the kitchen, opened the freezer, and pulled out two of the containers of sauce from the day before. She put the pot on the stove, intent on heating up lunch for everyone. The frozen sauce clunked loudly as she dropped it into the bottom of the pot.

She felt more than heard Hopper come up behind her. “El,” he said gently, but she shook her head.

“Do you think rigatoni is okay?” she asked instead, taking the box of pasta from the pantry. “I don’t have spaghetti.”

“Kid,” he tried again, but El just pointed into the pot.

“Will you eat the pork ribs? I don’t think they’ll stay good long enough for Mike.” From the living room she heard the high pitched wailing growl that was Garfield warning the Wheelers away from his personal space. _Someone should warn them that I’m the only one that cat likes_ , she thought, but couldn’t say out loud. She hoped neither of them tried to pet him.

“Yes, but -” he winced as she pulled out their smaller pot and started filling it with water. “Will you just listen to me?”

This came out as a near shout as she wheeled around, bumped directly into his chest, and dropped the pot of water onto the floor. El stared down at the pot on the ground, the spreading puddle of water, and their now-wet socks.

“El, you need to get some sleep before we go back to the hospital,” Hopper said, grabbing a dish towel from the oven handle and dropping to one knee to try and mop up the puddle.

“Everything okay?” Karen asked, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen. El could feel the heat in her own face as she nodded and picked up the pot, rinsing it off and starting to refill it again.

“El was just going to lay down while I heat up some pasta for us,” Hopper said, taking the pot out of El’s hand and depositing it on the stove. “Rigatoni okay?”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Karen stepped towards the stove uncertainly. “I can watch this while you..”

“Thanks,” Hopper said gruffly, leading El out of the kitchen and towards the tiny bedroom. 

“I’m not a baby,” El muttered, wriggling away from him.

“Who called you a baby?” Hopper asked distantly.

“Babies need naps,” El grumbled, and Hopper snorted a laugh.

“At least an hour,” he ordered, pointing towards the unmade bed. “I’d prefer two, but we’re not going back to that hospital until you get some sleep.”

They had a brief stand off - thirty seconds at most - before El conceded. She pulled off her wet socks, tossing them across the room. The second she laid down, smelled the familiar scent on the sheets, the exhaustion she’d been holding at bay washed over her like a wave. She’d been holding it back through sheer force of will.

She entered that hazy half awareness state before sleep almost immediately; faintly she heard a hiss as Garfield padded into the bedroom and found Hopper, and then the familiar weight as he jumped up onto the bed and parked himself between her knees. He was a poor substitute for Mike, but El was grateful for him all the same.

 

***

Getting El home and into the bedroom to sleep was his first accomplishment. Hopper knew no one else who could ignore physical discomfort without complaint the way El could - so she must have been feeling very poorly to have laid down and fallen asleep with that little bit of fight.

His second accomplishment had been to shoo Karen Wheeler out of the kitchen long enough for him to heat up sauce and make a pot of coffee.

Coffee didn’t really _go_ with rigatoni and red sauce, but he needed something to mask the taste of the Wild Turkey that he’d poured into the cup, mentally preparing himself for the forced interaction he was about to endure with the Wheelers.

If he’d ever doubted just how much he loved that kid, the next two hours of his life cemented it, permanently. 

“El made this?” Karen asked, a slightly disbelieving tone to her voice. 

Hopper, by El’s request, didn’t smoke in their apartment, but he was considering bending that rule since neither she nor Mike were there to scold him. “Yeah. The lady downstairs, Anna? She showed her how to make pretty much everything her and Mike eat now. They emigrated from Palermo, so it’s all very… garlicky, but it’s better than what me and Joyce taught her.”

“This is really impressive,” Karen muttered, more to herself than as a response.

“You should taste her bread,” Hopper said. That had been her project this summer while Mike had been working - learning how to work the dough, let it rest, how to plait - and the results had been impressive. He didn’t think he’d seen her once without a streak of flour on her face or in her hair. “Of course, Anna doesn’t know how to cook for less than a dozen people, so El freezes a lot of what she makes and Mike takes it to school.”

“Economical,” Ted observed. He was sitting back on the loveseat, legs crossed. His newspaper was folded across his knees.

“Yeah, Mike discontinued his meal plan this year because he doesn’t get food on campus anymore,” Hopper said, and noted that both Karen and Ted looked surprised to hear this. Surprised because El could actually cook? Or surprised that their son had learned to manage their budget like an adult? Hopper couldn’t be sure.

They lapsed into silence. Hopper lusted after a cigarette.

Finally Karen carefully placed her bowl on the edge of the TV stand. Hopper idly thought that he should look for a coffee table for the kids.

“It’s nicer than I expected,” Karen admitted. “The apartment.”

“I’m not much of a cook,” Hopper said, “but I keep a clean house.”

“Mike never was the sort to complain about chores either,” Karen said, tapping a finger against her lips and looking around. “It’s a little dingy though.”

“It’s within their budget,” Hopper said simply, and sipped his coffee, trusting them to read between the lines.

“If they put some art on the walls it might brighten the place up,” she mused.

“What?” Ted asked, raising an eyebrow. “Risk losing the security deposit just to brighten the place up?”

“Ah they’re not moving any time soon,” Hopper dismissed. “You couldn’t pry El away from the Christianos. And Mike walks to campus. I bet they finish out his degree in this place.”

They lapsed into silence again. Hopper collected the dishes, intensely grateful for the opportunity to escape the room so he could go wash up. He resisted the urge for a cigarette, but allowed himself another cup of coffee - with only half the allotment of Wild Turkey that he’d poured into the previous cup. He still had to drive them back to the hospital after all.

When he went back into the living room, holding his fresh cup, Ted sighed and scratched at his chin. “I could use a drink.”

“There’s more coffee in there,” Hopper said automatically, gesturing with the cup. 

“Not that kind of drink,” Ted said wryly. Hopper blinked as he took in his meaning. Never pegged Ted Wheeler for an alcohol drinker, but in the interest of fairness, if Hopper had been asked what Ted Wheeler drank to decompress he probably would have guessed milk.

Karen smacked his shoulder. “They’re only nineteen! There shouldn’t be anything in the house!”

“Actually,” Hopper cleared his throat. “How do you feel about bourbon, Ted? I might have thrown a bottle in my overnight bag.”

Ted’s eyes dropped to the coffee mug. “Yes,” he said firmly, and after years of being involved with the Wheeler family, Hopper finally found something in common with one of them.

El slept for just under two hours, and was still half asleep when she wandered into the living room, curls frizzy. She rubbed her eyes. “Can we go back to the hospital?”

“Yeah kid.” He gestured to the kitchen. “But you haven’t eaten anything. Eat some pasta while we finish our coffee.”

He glanced at Ted. Ted toasted him with the coffee mug.

***

A nurse was coming out of the room when they arrived. She was holding tubes of blood, and carefully attaching stickers to them as she walked. 

“Oh, hello!” she said brightly. “You have good timing. He’s just woken up.”

El fought the urge to elbow her out of the way. The nurse showed them the lab tubes, and her stomach roiled as she thought about Mike’s blood being in them. “These are just testing for infection. If they come back clear he should be able to recover at home.”

 _Home_. She flashed back to being twelve and in a cabin with Hopper. _Promise_?

Then the nurse moved out of her way, and she got to see Mike again. He was laying back, the bed semi-reclined. When the door opened he tried to lean forward to see who it was, and El rushed to him as he winced and fell back again.

“Are you hurting?” she asked, reaching for hi hand. “I can call for the nurse.”

“No,” Mike said, sounding breathless. “Just moved too fast. I have all these staples in my stomach now.”

She wanted to see them, and almost asked, but then saw Mike’s mother in her peripheral. Reluctantly, she started to slide off of the side of the bed, let his mother step closer, but unlike this morning when El started to pull away, Mike wouldn’t let her go.

He shot her a questioning look, but she just shrugged and looked down at their entwined hands.

She depended on Mike to guide her during their interactions with his parents. She supported him completely, and had already felt like her very presence had caused so many of their issues. The thought that one of her actions might stress their relationship further - and that Mike might start to resent her in turn - caused her a physical ache in her chest.

“They said you might come home tomorrow,” she told him, leaning back so she was sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, still holding hands.

“God I hope so,” Mike huffed. “I feel like shit but if I’m going to feel like shit I’d rather do it at home.”

“Maybe Garfield will sit with you,” she suggested. “He always sits with me when I’m sick.”

“The only way Garfield would sit with me is if he tried to smother me,” Mike shot back, his mouth twisting in disbelief at her suggestion, but it was affectionate. “I kind of miss him though.”

“Really?” Their cat hated everyone but her, and especially hated Mike.

“Yeah, I can’t wait to see what dead animals he left in my shoes.” It was so good to talk to him with the medication worn off. He sounded like his normal self again - a little pained, sure, but not confused and talking like they were 13 again, like he’d been that morning.

He looked up and addressed their parents. “How long are you all staying?”

“I’ll probably head out this evening or tomorrow,” Hopper said. “El’s got a handle on the situation.” She looked at him sharply. She hadn’t felt in control of the situation since Mike had told her he didn’t want dinner.

“We’ll make sure you get set up at home,” Karen said, looking at Ted. “But we’ve left Holly with the Sinclairs, and we can’t leave her there all weekend. At least she was in school today but tomorrow she’ll just be in their hair.”

Mike nodded, and then stiffened. “What day is it?”

“Friday,” El answered.

“Don’t you work tonight?” he asked, eyebrows creasing.

“Are you still doped up?” It was inconceivable that she would leave him in the hospital to go read at the counter at Moonlight Parlour. “I called Claire while we were at home. She said to take all the time I needed.”

“You’re working, El? Where are you working?” It was the first time Karen Wheeler had asked her a direct question about her own life since before her and Mike had gotten married.

Mike answered over her, rolling his eyes. “She’s working for Claire the Loon.”

El twisted and whopped him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “I told you to stop calling her that!”

His face was wounded with a mock pout. “But I’m injured!”

“Roy is the only one who thinks that’s funny,” she said sternly. Claire owned the shop where she worked, and she adored El. She read palms, and liked to make glowing predictions about Mike and El and their bright future, and constantly passed El trinkets and tchotchkes that she decided _belonged_ with her. The job was easy, the pay was minimum wage but under the table, and most importantly - it got El out of the apartment and interacting with the rest of the natural world.

Mike rolled his eyes. “You can’t deny she’s a little weird.”

“You’ve punched people who say the same thing about me,” El pointed out, and that, she was glad to see, seemed to strike him. Mike colored a little, and, satisfied, El turned back to the parents. “It’s a little shop. She’s really nice.”

For a moment everyone was quiet. El wasn't sure why she was surprised. Hopper knew about her job already, and Mike's dad never had anything to say, but his mom looked... surprised, like she was thinking something but didn't want to say it out loud.

They stayed until visiting hours were over - and even then, a nurse had to kick them out of the room. The parents all stepped out, but El lingered so that she could kiss Mike goodbye.

"Love you," he said roughly, pushing a curl behind her ear. "Hate that you're going home alone."

"'M not alone,” she pointed out, rather reasonably she thought. "I have Hopper and your parents."

He leveled her with a look, and she grimaced in acknowledgment. Even though he was spending the night alone in the hospital, she would feel much more lonely in the presence of his parents without his company.

"Come home tomorrow,” she ordered gently, and reluctantly let go of his hand to join their parents in the hall.

It was during the long walk out to the parking garage that the idea started to form - Mike might not have said as much yet, but she could tell that this entire ordeal had shaken him up. Even being discharged he still had several days of rest before he could move around again, get the staples removed, and it would be several weeks before he was allowed to lift anything heavier than a bag of sugar.

Not to mention her own nerves, which felt raw and exposed. Hard enough to deal with Mike and his health, but the addition of his parents and the constant sense of judgment - she desperately craved a safe place to hide and process how she was feeling.

By the time they got out to Hopper's truck she had a plan, and could picture it perfectly.

"Need your help,” she said to Hopper, who, to his credit, agreed without asking any details. He was good at that - she had gotten better at asking for things she needed or even just wanted, but there had a been times when she'd endured just because she wasn't used to getting things she wanted, or needed. For her to ask so frankly - no wonder she hadn’t needed to persuade him.

The Wheelers rented a hotel room, and promised to return to the apartment so they could all go to the hospital together the next morning, which was fine - it meant she and Hopper could start their work uninterrupted that evening.

She had him up until midnight, when she deliberately dozed off on the loveseat to save them an argument over who was going to sleep on the mattress - between the two of them, her back would tolerate it much better than his would.

What she hadn’t thought about was Ted and Karen’s reactions when they arrived to the apartment the next morning and found that the living room had been replaced with a makeshift blanket fort - complete with dragging their mattress into the living room, in front of the television.

“Um,” Karen stopped in the doorway. Ted, who hadn’t seen yet, bumped into her from behind, but all she did was take a staggering step forward with a confused look on her face.

El pulled aside one sheet and gestured for them to come all the way in. Ted was carrying several paper bags, and shouldered past her to carry them into the kitchen while Karen looked around in wonder.

“For Mike,” El explained. “The bedroom is too boring. He can watch TV this way.” 

At her most instinctual, El remembered the blanket fort in the Wheeler’s basement as a safe, warm place, more than anywhere else in the world. Mike would be closer to her while she cooked, wouldn’t be bored in the bedroom, and honestly, it would make them both feel better to have this space to recover in.

“You know,” Karen reached out and ran a hand down a sheet, pulling aside the drape to let a little sunshine in. “This is a good idea. When Michael was little he’d always go sleep in that fort in the basement when he was sick. He’s going to love this.”

What El wanted to say was, _I know_. 

What El wanted to say was, _Part of the reason he loved that fort was because of me._

What El wanted to say was, _That fort was the first place I ever felt like I was home_.

What El said was, “Thank you, I think he will like it.”

“Come with me,” Karen said, taking her by the arm and leading her into the kitchen. El was surprised to find that the bags Ted had hauled into the house were groceries.

“We bought the basics so you wouldn’t have to leave. And also,” Karen reached into her purse and pulled out a slip of paper. “Last night I wrote down my recipe for meatloaf. It doesn’t feed a dozen people, but Michael always liked it. I thought maybe you’d want to try something different?”

It might as well have been a solid gold block, wreathed in halo with a chorus of angels behind it. El immediately recognized it for what it truly was - more than an olive branch, this was a stamp of approval from Karen Wheeler. Mike must have felt the same way when he got his acceptance letter from Indiana State. Her hands were practically trembling when she took it from Karen and skimmed over it. Karen used different abbreviations than Anna did, but El knew she could make this, easily.

“I’ll make it this weekend,” she promised, heartfelt, not making eye contact.

In another time or place, or if they were different people, they might have hugged then. Instead Karen put out a hand, squeezed El’s shoulder supportively, and then excused herself.

***

He’d seen Karen duck out of the kitchen, still holding her little purse against her hip, but hadn’t realized she’d been in there with El - until he walked into the kitchen and found her looking at a piece of paper like it was a winning lottery ticket.

She looked up at him, nearly in tears. “She wants me to make meatloaf?”

“Who, Mrs. Wheeler?” Hopper jammed a thumb over his shoulder. “You can make meatloaf. You’d probably make great meatloaf.”

“No,” El exhaled, and gestured around the kitchen. “She bought groceries. She wants me to make _her_ meatloaf.”

Hopper considered that. “It’s her recipe? I’ve had her meatloaf, it’s pretty good.”

“They don’t hate me,” El said, grinning shakily and looking back down at the paper again.

Jesus Christ, was she still holding on to that? Hopper thought he’d talked her out of that notion last Christmas. The Wheelers had never hated El - they just hadn’t thought that the pair would continue their relationship outside of high school, and especially didn’t think it was a good idea to get married.

The Wheelers had tried to call Mike’s bluff, and Hopper hadn’t realized how personally El had taken it. He wondered if Mike knew.

For a moment, Hopper was so angry he wanted to punch the wall. He couldn’t even name exactly who he was angry at - himself, for not realizing how insecure El felt? Mike, for not talking her out of these crazy thoughts? Karen, for not putting aside her pride? Or even Ted, who could send the kids money but couldn’t make himself try and talk to his wife?

Then he exhaled, and as quickly as it had come on he felt the anger rush out again. He had tried to talk to El; it wasn’t his fault that she hadn’t believed him. Mike probably didn’t know she felt this way, or had addressed it just as Hopper had. And Karen and Ted were parents who were still trying to decide what level of parenting was best for their child - even though Mike wasn’t a child anymore, and really just needed their support.

It was all perfectly understandable, but not fair to El, who hadn’t been raised in any sort of home, and still struggled to understand complicated family dynamics, and in moments of uncertainty divided the world into Good and Bad, Friends and Enemies, Reward and Punishment.

His arm snaked out, pulling her against him. “No one hates you kid,” he said roughly into her hair. “I told you that.”

El wriggled away from him, that watery, gratified smile still on her face. “You told me that,” she agreed, but it was clear that now she actually believed him. All these years, and the kid still found ways to break his heart. He had thought it was supposed to get easier as they get older.

“Listen.” He put his hands on her shoulders, drawing her eyes up to his. “I’m going to get you to the hospital, and I’m going to say goodbye to Mike, and then I’m going to let the Wheelers get you two home and settled alright?”

For a moment, it didn’t seem like it was all right - her eyes widened, expression pulling into her _he’s really gonna make me eat the peas_ face. “But, what if..” her voice was teary, and he rushed to reassure her. 

“You got this kid. You absolutely got this.” He gestured to the living room. “You’re the one who knew what he needed to feel better. You’re the one who got him to the hospital. You can take care of him - you don’t need us.”

She bit her lip, clearly torn between - what? Believing him or not?

“Look.” He reached out and tapped the paper in her hands. “I’m not the only one who thinks so. The Wheelers are leaving right after they get you two settled, because they know you can handle it.”

“They don’t hate me,” El muttered again, biting her thumb nail and looking down at the recipe as if she still didn’t believe it was there.

“More than that, kid.” Hopper squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “They trust you.”

***

Mike loved the blanket fort. 

He was exhausted by the time she and Ted hauled him up the steps - it still hurt to stand up straight, even with the prescription sent home from the hospital - and the awed look on his face when he saw the living room almost made El fall in love with him all over again. It was too much like that thirteen year old boy who had spent a year calling for her on his walkie-talkie. 

The Wheelers had one more surprise before they left: Ted had rented a VCR, knowing that Michael would be essentially trapped in the apartment while he recovered. It only reinforced the feeling of being a teenager again - how many nights had been spent in the Wheeler’s basement, safely ensconced within the blankets, watching grainy moves on their old television?

They got Mike settled, reclined on the mattress, pillows under his knees to keep pressure off his abdomen, and after helping them hook up the VCR and making sure he was as comfortable as they could possibly make him, the Wheelers left, and for the first time in two days, Mike and El were alone together.

El laid down on the mattress next to him, on her belly and so close that they were pressed hip to hip. All of the stress of the last couple days had suddenly made her feel bone tired. She pressed her face into a pillow, turned slightly so she could watch him out of the corner of her eye as he flipped through the VHS tapes that his father had picked to entertain them for the next week.

“He did pretty good,” Mike commented, showing her the cases. “He must have remembered the Ghostbusters costumes, because he got that and the second one and… National Lampoon’s Vacation? Pretty sure he just asked the clerk what movies the kids are into these days. Coulda been worse, he could have gotten Ghost Dad or Look Who’s Talking I guess...” 

He drifted off, and El’s eyes started to close when he exclaimed, “Die Hard! El, we gotta watch this! I can’t believe he remembered!”

El groaned. She remembered that summer too well - the party collectively must have gone to the Hawk no less than six times to see that movie. She’d gone twice - once to actually watch, and once to try and make out with Mike in the back. It was one of the few movies he’d actually been distracted from kissing her to watch.

“You can watch it,” she told him, “while I make meatloaf for dinner.”

“Meatloaf?” He sounded surprised, which made sense. She had never made it before, and hadn’t told him about his mother’s gesture yet. “I haven’t had meatloaf in forever, that sounds amazing.”

“Good.” She’d make dinner after a nap. She deserved a nap.

Right as she was about to doze off though, Mike asked in a quiet, unsure tone, “Did I cry in front of Hopper?”

She lifted her head and - she couldn’t help it, she had every intention of saving his dignity and lying, but lying did not come naturally to her, and instead she pulled what Mike called her Bambi face, which was a dead giveaway. “No?”

He looked at her face, clearly reading the truth in it, and heaved a huge sigh. “That’s what I thought.”


End file.
